Doctoral research [1980, Vol. 7, no. 2]

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DOCTORAL RESEARCH
Maureen H. Berry, Editor UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
The doctoral dissertations reviewed in this issue cover a very broad spectrum in terms of time span and focus of interest. Yet, there is a common thread running through the tapestry: the evolu-tion of economic institutions, and their changing roles, in the Ameri-can business environment.
Our survey commences, in colonial times, with Hitz's study of the development of American woolen manufacture to 1832. The colonies had depended on the mother country for much of their finished textiles, particularly fine broadcloth, and this policy was fostered after independence by the Jeffersonian view that native industry was unnecessary and uneconomical. Shifting sentiments and economic opportunity, combined with American inventiveness, provided the springboards for factories which soon overtook their transatlantic counterparts in technology and mechanization. Cost finding, and the problems of designing cost accounting systems given the various economic factors at play in those early days, are also dealt with in this research. We then move ahead some ten years or so to review Acosta's investigation of the profound changes affecting the development of financial institutions and industrial structure in the 1840's and 1850's, culminating in the financial panic of 1857. An interesting feature of this dissertation is its use of two contrasting monetary theories as tools for understanding the very rich economic history of this period.
Commencing with Posey's thesis, attention is focused on specific economic incentives for industrial development, namely the invest-ment tax credit. This program was signed into law by President Kennedy in October 1962 after very mixed public reaction to the proposal. Posey is basically concerned with analyzing the events preceding adoption of the credit and its subsequent modifications and, once again, the reader is treated to novel research method-ology: in this case, a blending of several philosophies and methods. Wunder's research leads on from Posey's by attempting to estab-lish empirically the degree to which the investment tax credit was